Human beings aren’t meant to operate like computers “” at high speeds, continuously, for long periods of time. We’re designed to be rhythmic, and to intermittently renew. Here are the six strategies we’ve found work best:
1. Make sufficient sleep your highest priority.
Far too many of us buy into the myth that one hour less of sleep allows us one more of productivity. In fact, even very small amounts of sleep deprivation significantly undermine capacity for focus, analytic thinking and creativity. The research is clear: more than 95 per cent of usrequire seven to eight hours of sleep in order to be fully rested, and for our brains to optimally embed new learning. Great performers, ranging from musicians to athletes, often get even more than 8 hours.

2. Take a renewal break at least every ninety minutes
It’s now how long you work that determines the value you produce, but rather the energy you bring to whatever hours you work.
The first key is to intermittently quiet your physiology. You can dramatically lower your heart rate, your blood pressure and your muscle tension in as little as 30 to 60 second seconds with regular practice.
With your eyes closed, try breathing in through your nose to a count of three, and out through your mouth slowly to a count of six. In this way, you’re extending you’re recovery. As your body quiets down, your thinking mind will also get quieter and you’ll feel more relaxed.
3. Keep a running list of everything “” literally everything “” that you want or need to do.
The more fully and frequently you download what’s on your mind, the less energy you’ll squander in fruitless thinking about undone tasks, and the more energy you’ll have to be fully present in whatever you’re doing.
4. Run up your heart rate or take a nap in the early afternoon.
If taking a run or going to a gym is too time consuming, how about taking a brisk 15 to 30 minute walk outside? Or if you’re in an office building, how about walking up and down the stairs?
Alternatively, take a 20 to 30 minute nap between 1 and 4 p.m, when most of us feel a wave of fatigue. Researcher Sara Mednick has found that a short nap is not just powerfully restorative, but also prompts significantly higher performance on cognitive tasks in the subsequent several hours, compared to non-nappers.

5. Practice appreciation “” and savoring.
One of the least recognized ways we squander energy is in negative emotions. We’re far quicker to notice what’s wrong in our lives than what’s right.
Look for opportunities to appreciate someone in your life, and share what you’re feeling “” directly, or in a note. You’ll be giving the other person a shot of positive energy, but sharing positive energy will also make you feel better.

6. Develop a transition ritual between work and home.
When we leave the office, many of us carry work with us. The result is that even when we get home, we’re still not truly present. Consider establishing a very specific way to disengage from work so you can leave it behind.
The most powerful ritual we’ve seen clients build is to stop somewhere along the route home, such as a public park, and take a few minutes to let the day go, and to focus on the evening ahead. Turn home back into a place where you’re truly getting renewal.
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At the age of seventeen, Milton Hyland Erickson was a victim of polio. Ten months after he contracted the disease, he heard a doctor tell his parents: “your son won’t live through the night.”

Ericksson heard his mother crying. “Maybe she won’t suffer so much if I get through tonight,” he thought to himself. And he decided not to sleep till dawn.
In the morning he shouted out: “Hey mother! I’m still alive!”

There was so much joy in the house that from then on he resolved to resist always one more night in order to postpone his parents’ suffering.

He died in 1990 at the age of 75, leaving behind a series of important books on the enormous capacity that man has to overcome his own limitations.

Many years ago, there lived a man who was capable of loving and forgiving everyone he came across. Because of this, God sent an angel to talk to him.

‘God asked me to come and visit you and tell you that he wishes to reward you for your goodness,’ said the angel. ‘You may have any gift you wish for. Would you like the gift of healing?’

‘Certainly not,’ said the man. ‘I would prefer God to choose those who should be healed.’

‘And what about leading sinners back to the path of Truth?’

‘That’s a job for angels like you. I don’t want to be venerated by anyone or to serve as a permanent example.’

‘Look, I can’t go back to Heaven without having given you a miracle. If you don’t choose, I’ll have to choose one for you.’

The man thought for a moment and then said:

‘All right, I would like good to be done through me, but without anyone noticing, not even me, in case I should commit the sin of vanity.’

So the angel arranged for the man’s shadow to have the power of healing, but only when the sun was shining on the man’s face. In this way, wherever he went, the sick were healed, the earth grew fertile again, and sad people rediscovered happiness.

The man traveled the Earth for many years, oblivious of the miracles he was working because when he was facing the sun, his shadow was always behind him. In this way, he was able to live and die unaware of his own holiness.

A Filipino blogger, Jerome, collected a series of my comments on writing

On Confidence: You cannot sell your next book by underrating your book that was just published. Be proud of what you have.
On Trust: Trust your reader, don’t try to describe things. Give a hint and they will fulfill this hint with their own imagination.

On Expertise: You cannot take something out of nothing. When you write a book, use your experience.
On Critics: some writers want to please their peers, they want to be “recognized”. This shows insecurity and nothing else, please forget about this. You should care to share your soul and not to please other writers.
On Notetaking: If you want to capture ideas, you are lost. You are going to be detached from emotions and forget to live your life. You will be an observer and not a human being living his or her life. Forget taking notes, what important remains what is not important goes away.
On Research: If you overload your book with a lot of research, you are going to be very boring to yourself and to your reader. Books are not there to show how intelligent you are. Books are there to show your soul.

On Writing: I write the book that wants to be written. Behind the first sentence is a thread that takes you to the last.

On Style: Don’t try to innovate storytelling, tell a good story and it is magical. I see people trying to work so much in style, finding different ways to tell the same thing. It’s like fashion. Style is the dress, but the dress does not dictate what is inside the dress.

In New York I am going to have late-afternoon tea with a rather unusual artist. She works in a bank on Wall Street, but one day she had a dream: she had to go to twelve places in the world and in each place make a painting or a sculpture using material from nature.
So far she has managed to complete four of these works. She shows me photos of one of them: an Indian sculpted inside a cave in California. While she awaits the signs from her dreams, she goes on working at the bank – in that way she saves up the money to travel and fulfill her task.
I ask her why she does this.
“It’s to keep the world in equilibrium,” she answers.

“It may seem silly, but there is something tenuous that joins us all and we can make it better or worse according to how we act. We can save or destroy so much with a simple gesture that at times seems utterly useless.

“It may even be that my dreams are a lot of nonsense, but I don’t want to run the risk of not following them. For me, people are related just like a huge, fragile spider’s web. I am trying through my work to mend a part of that web.”

“Coelho is a novelist who writes in a universal language.” “”The New York Times

“Vivid, captivating. . . . So engaging that readers will not want to put it down for even a fraction of a second. As the author sets out on his journey, the reader gets the sense that, he too, is embarking on the same voyage.” “”The International Herald Tribune

“[A] chimerical tale. . . . There’s no better author to serve such a work than Coelho.” “”Publishers Weekly

“Enigmatic. . . . An illuminating book.” “”The National

“Borges set the standard that Coelho capably upholds. . . . Coelho the writer is both discerning and revealing of Coelho the protagonist, whose enthusiasms we share.” “”The Washington Independent Review

“Aleph is a book written by the soul, and for the soul. And when you have finished the last word on the last page, your eternal spirit will be dancing with joy.” “”Cecilia Samartin, author of Broken Paradise

Reading Paulo’s book is such a magical experience. This book will truly open doors to self-discovery that you didn’t know existed. ALEPH holds the key to that doorway. Brendon Burchard, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, “The Millionaire Messenger”

“It’s time for American readers to set out on a journey of discovery that will lead them to the works of this exceptional writer.” “”USA Today

In 1961, the digital future was just starting to come to fruition. And the Bell System had a number of products that had either just come onto the market, or were incipient, that implemented these new computer technologies. In December 1960, AT&T had just announced an investment of $250 billion dollars for satellite communications and improving the network for data services and computer communication.

In 1958, AT&T had just announced its first modem. Springing from technologies used for the computerized navigation of missiles, the modem, i.e. the Data-Phone, was rolled out in a few markets in the midwest. It would be made commercially available throughout the network by 1960. The Data-Phone could transmit at up to a bit-rate of 110 bits per second.

This film breaks into approximately two parts “” part I: the problems of the present, and part II: the way those problems could be solved by the technology of the future. This film not only serves as almost the birth of the information age, it also projects that technology far into the future.

The commercial products that would allow this connected, computer-communicating network? They’re basic, but at the time seemed radical:

* The wireless Bellboy Pager, which was introduced commercially in 1962
* The Data-phone, which was supposed to revolutionize business communications
* The videophone””shown as a credit-card-reading vertical two-way television
* The card-reading phone or automatic dialer, which would dial a number from small plastic punch cards, introduced in 1961